Martin Kirk and Frederic Mousseau — The hidden hands behind East-West tug of war in Ukraine

Confirms what Michael Hudson has been saying about the not so hidden neoliberal agenda. 

News from Brussels on July 28 and from Washington on July 29 that both the EU and US are stepping up sanctions on Russia have been met with a general "it's about time" from the world. Nobody outside Russia, it seems, has trouble roundly condemning Russian President Vladimir Putin for fuelling this terrible conflict, or approving of punitive western responses.

And whereas there may be blame to lay at Putin's feet, to think that western leaders are now reacting simply because they are outraged by the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight 17 or what they see as Russian expansionist tendencies per se, misses a very big piece of the puzzle. On both sides of the Atlantic, leaders are playing out a strategy in league with two powerful actors who they have managed to keep quietly in the background so far - the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The World Bank and the IMF's primary interest in Ukraine is the agricultural sector. Sometimes referred to as the breadbasket of Europe, Ukraine's ample fields of rich black soil allow for such high production volumes of cereals and grain that it is the world's third-largest exporter of corn and fifth of wheat.

It is a very big prize for whoever ends up with control. The IMF and World Bank are clear they are on the side of the West, a club that includes western agricultural corporations. The Bank and the IMF have a long history of pressuring economies the world over to make themselves into more profitable environments for large corporations; it is essentially their one-size-fits-all model for development. Ukraine is just their latest target, and their fingerprints are all over this crisis…

Move along. Nothing to see here.

So when we read the headlines and grand rhetoric about Russian aggression and human rights abuses, we should remember that what is being fought for in Ukraine is the ability for western leaders and institutions to impose the neoliberal trickle-down economic model. A model that has proved to devastate small businesses and farms, fuel inequality all over the world and concentrate wealth and power in ever fewer hands.

The aspect that the authors don't mention is the thinly disguised manufactured coup that ousted a democratically elected president when he chose a better deal from Russia than the neoliberals in the West here willing to cut.

Al Jazzera
The hidden hands behind East-West tug of war in Ukraine

Martin Kirk, Global Campaigns Director for /The Rules, a new a new global campaign fighting against inequality and poverty, with a specific aim of highlighting the systemic damage caused by tax havens around the world, and Frederic Mousseau, Policy Directory of the Oakland Institute and co-author of the report Walking on the West Side: the World Bank and the IMF in the Ukraine Conflict.